100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 43

Breakfast:  Eggs, bacon, hash browns (icky, ate them anyway), raisin bread toast, coffee (lots)
Lunch:  Culver's bacon burger, sweet potato fries, diet cola, root beer float
Dinner:  Nothing - amended to add blueberry yogurt

Back home.  Had a good breakfast, except for the toast and hash browns.  My intentions were good, but not good enough.  Lunch was on the trip home and, frankly, there really is not any reasonable menu choice for seriously healthy eating.  There was one salad choice that I could see, and it was some berry thing.  They may have others, but I could not find any on the menu board whilst I was waiting in line, and since the lines were full of our coach members as well as the hapless locals that decided to eat when we were there, I was reluctant to engage in conversation with the counter staff about making modification to what I did see.  In my defense, I did not choose the grilled reuben sandwich, something I wanted very much since we were rushed at lunch on the trip up yesterday and I was able to eat only some of the inside of the reuben I ordered then.  I think I forgot to mention that.  Sad, really, because it was made with homemade marble rye bread.  I will bet it was delicious.

I did fall victim to the fries, but they were of a kinder, gentler potato.  I have absolutely no defense for the float, except that it was the smallest size.  Truth be told, I did not much enjoy the burger.  It had too much processed cheese and mayonnaise on it.  I scraped as much off as I could and then did not eat the last quarter of the thing anyway.  The float disappointed, as well.  Huh.

The tour director passed out more candy, chips and peanuts on the way home and I asked her if her final offering was going to be insulin.  She thought it only mildly amusing and I am guessing that was only because a fellow traveler laughed and she was trying to be a good sport to my smart-ass-ed-ness. 

I ate the little bag of chips, but not the rest.  Still, no dinner for me.  Rats, I still have to take my meds and they need to be taken with food, so it will have to be the little yogurt with blueberries. You know, if I do not start taking this healthy thing seriously, I am going to end up worse off than when I began over a month ago.  Hell, I am nearly halfway through the process and the only weight I have lost is where I did not want to lose any.    Sure, I do have one less chin and less flab in a couple of places.  Big deal.  Small victories, nearly insignificant in the larger war.  I seem to lack the will to do this getting healthier thing.  I sense sabotage from within.  A decidedly bigger deal.

As for feeling, well, I felt well during the weekend.  No stress, no thinking about stuff.  The new pain med worked great and my hips and knees did not bother me a bit until it was close to time for the next dose.  I could take another one now, but I am going to try to fall asleep without it, thinking that being back in my own, comfy bed will be enough to help me fall right to sleep.

I am feeling kind of cranky because it is steaming in here.  I will manage.  Two days away from everything should be two more notches on my Belt Of Courage.  I need to be more brave and every little bit helps.  I worried that these little trips were an attempt to escape from the here, but I think, I believe that they are steps towards being more self-sufficient and less dominated and afraid. 

On the way home, it was raining and I spent a lot of time looking out of the window at all the lovely countryside.  And, I kept thinking, oh, I could live there...and there...and that place...even there in the little town that flashed by.  I want so much to be somewhere, anywhere else.  Cannot do it.  The whole running away from things thing.  I have to find a way to live here, with everything, or I will never be able to settle somewhere else with comfort and confidence and the surety that comes from making the right decision at the right time and for the right reason.  I have the right reason, in spades, but the right time can come only when I have worked through all of this crap.  Just have to pull up my big girl panties and do it.  I need some serious therapy and have for a long time.  Wonder how to fit that in the budget, under the travel, of course, which is a sort of therapy of it's own.

I knit a wash cloth and the body and one sleeve of a really tiny sweater.  I think that it will end up being only two inches square, or not much more than that.  I am using four, 000 needles.  Very small and I have to really pay attention because whilst it is fairly easy to un-knit with larger needles and yarn, I am also using a very fine yard that is intended for making stretch socks.  My eyes finally gave out on that grey-skied, rainy ride home.

GP, which is kind of like the icing on the guilty pleasure of these little trips.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 40

Breakfast:  Eggs, bacon, roll...all right, 2 rolls, but they were little
Lunch:  Apple
Dinner:  McDonald's with my baby and her babies

Forty days.  Forty nights, too, I guess.  How biblical.  It seems as though I expected to breeze through this mess of an idea.  And, certainly, by this time I should be as healthy as it is possible to be and perhaps even a little svelte.  Or, at least, a little less bulgy, which I am, but not very much.  I am, however, walking like a champ.  I rarely even think of my cane, although I will be taking it along this weekend and on future trips, no matter how long they are.  It would be foolish to be stuck somewhere and not have anything to help me get around.  In the support of honesty, though, I am taking a whole shitload of pain meds, but I am still managing with the cane.  That has to count for something, yes?

I had this goofy feeling just a few minutes ago.  I spent the day with my daughter and the babies.  We played and made stuff and created stories with cars.  Actually, it was the little baby who made up the stories.  I just played along.  His big brother helped me to knit and was sad that he could not handle the needles, and I was thinking that he might be able to manage one of those round knitting things.  Once I get the yarn set, it should be fairly easy for him to guide the yarns and lift the stitches.  He has really good fine motor control and even managed to crochet a chain this afternoon, so the knitting thing is worth a try.  If it does not work, then I will have that cool device for myself.

Oh, the goofy thought was that it felt fine to walk and that I felt better somehow.  It might be that I am no longer choking and gagging and coughing out my remaining bits of lung, but it had a different quality to all of that tonight.  I felt fluid in a way that I have not for a long time.  I thought that being away from home for over-full days, two days in a row, and away from the crap here, might be contributing to that sense of well-being.  Then, I thought that maybe clearing my schedule so that I can get back into organizing this joint better and finding my way back into the studio might not be what I need right now, the part of that where I will be staying home and in the house more.  Then, I thought, what the hell.  If I want to have a tidy environment and do some messing around with sculpting or painting or some damn thing, that is what I should do, so I quickly dismissed the option of filling my schedule to the gills again and am hoping that I can manage better with avoiding the stuff that saddens me so.  I am going to give it my best shot.  Hope for the best.  Regroup if I have to.  Bitch, moan and complain as needed, but still get through it.  God, I hope I can do that.  If it does not work out as well as I would like, I can always fall back on stabbing myself into unconsciousness.

So, dinner.  The little baby, at two and a half years of age, has never been inside a McDonald's restaurant.  Sure, he has had the occasional burger and fries, I have even bought that stuff on my way to their house for lunch, but today was his first time inside one of them.

My daughter lives in a tiny town, so it was no surprise that the other mom and the dad that showed up in the playroom were toting children that are in my big grandson's preschool.  The boys had a great time, especially when the dad growled and chased them.  My little grandson was completely unfamiliar with the kind of play equipment they have there and it was nearly time to go home before he could bring himself to cross the threshold at the top of the stairs.  I would have been hesitant, too, because he had to leave the steps and step into a bowl.  He finally did it, and I navigated him up to the next level, where he sat, walked around and told me about how he was at the airport, another place he has never been.  They live a quiet, calm life and are just as simple as I am in their daily practices, you know, the day-to-day ones of ordinary life, so this was a big deal for all of us.

As a grandma, it was nice to meet my grandson's friends and their parents.  I hope we get to do more of that sort of thing during this summer at the park.

I am trying to stay hungry, at least most of the time.  I figure that it will help me to not overeat, the theory being that I will greatly reduce my appetite in the process, and to faithfully stick to standard portion sizes.  I am not sure how close I stayed to that at our fast food dinner, but I did have a diet soft drink, a grilled chicken sandwich, no mayo and I ate only half of the bun, but I made up for it with lots of fries.  And, catsup.

Early day tomorrow, so I am not sharing some things that I wanted and they will have to wait for another time.  I am close to running out of GP images, but this one is named "I will stand by you."

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 39

Breakfast:  Creamy, dreamy, perfectly over-easy eggs, small hard roll, sliced in three layers, buttered and sprinkled with truffle salt
Lunch:  Herb mix greens, about 4 oz. diced beef (more leftovers), 1 medium tomato, splosh of vinaigrette
Dinner:  Japanese

When I was at the bakery yesterday, picking up some of their yummy cookies to take for my anniversary treat at the library, I bought six of their wonderful, tiny hard rolls.  If they were less plate-tectonic-y and all flaky on the outside and less chewy in the inside, they would probably be a few bites for the average person.  But, unless you live near to the city that is near to where I live, you may never have the privilege of enjoying them.  They go all hard and impossible to eat in two days, but were perfect this morning for dunking into the warm, luscious yolks, and that bit of truffle salt, oh gosh, it is just the best way to start the day.

I knew that it would be a long day with many challenges.  Weird how I know how the day will go like that, and I am never wrong.  If I sense that it will be an easy day, with at least one no-show and no bummed out clients, I plan on what I will do to catch up on all of that work that really never gets done.  Last week was like that...or was it the week before...no matter.  I knew last night that today was going to be one of those days where I would likely miss lunch and have to work late.  I am not sure that I like knowing, but it is what it is.

Anyway, I did not get home until 10:00 and can hardly stay awake to write.  Barely three hours of sleep because it was so freaking hot in here.  Outside, it was perfect sleeping weather.  Cool, but not too cool, with a nice breeze, a precursor to today's bluster, but last night it was lovely.  Unfortunately, the heat was set to 80 degrees and I could not find relief anywhere.  I was about to go sleep in the car when I finally found a small fan. 

This is nuts, and I have to find a small, window unit air conditioner that I am able to lift into the damn window.  We have central air, but, as I am constantly reminded, no matter how hot it is during the day, it mostly gets cooler when the sun goes down, even if it is only a few degrees, and since it does get cooler (by some definition on another planet maybe?), it makes sense to turn the furnace on and bring the temperature up and over what it is outside.  I swear, if the heat in here does not fry my brain I am going to stab myself until I lose consciousness.  I really, really will.  I swear.

So, anyway, I love, love and truly love the juvenile rabbits.  They are so cute and so funny.  One of them is hanging around the rhubarb and the storybook aspect of that pleases me so much.  He sits just under the canopy of one of the large, outer leaves and thinks that he is invisible.  If I make a move in any direction when he is on the lawn, munching on the stuff the birds toss off of the feeding stations, he freezes.  I stop.  I can see his eyes darting to the side, either tracking me or looking for an escape route.  There have been times when the two of us just stayed in place for more than ten minutes.  If I stay still, he will go back to chowing down and if I move again, he takes off into the rhubarb patch.  I sort of hate to begin harvesting there and ruin his domain.

Tonight, when I rounded the back of the house, he was sitting, chewing something, out there in the open and the drizzle.  I really had to use the bathroom, so I moved forward sooner than usual and he took off.  Or, she.  He/she is not telling.

I am so tired that I would love to indulge in some serious crankiness, but it was a wonderful day, full of really cool, interesting and dear clients.  The Walmart woman showed up and brought her mother along to meet me.  I managed to make the designs and images she wanted and still had time to join knitting club for an hour.  I stopped at the Japanese place and had a wonderful dinner, not too much, not too little...just right.  Off to find something to wash down an antihistamine, but first, a word from our GP.  More nested hearts.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 38

Breakfast:  Eggs, bacon
Lunch: Green pepper, cottage cheese
Dinner:  Leftover beef, horseradish in mayonnaise, green tea ice cream, glass of wine

I managed to choke down breakfast, but I am not using the bacon up before it goes bad.  I cooked it anyway, but it tasted just wrong enough to get tossed.  Lunch was supposed to be light and quick so that I could dash out between loads of laundry to fetch some things I needed for work tomorrow.

That did not work out because as I was beginning to brush my teeth, Lili came strolling by and yelled for me to open my door and when I did, she jumped up on the bed and yelled at me some more, so I laid down to pet her and the next thing I knew, it was after 4:30 and I just, barely, made it to the bakery to buy cookies for my second anniversary at work.  That is my main volunteer job and it is important enough to me to mark the occasion somehow.  I should have made something, but if I cannot cook every meal, then there certainly is not any energy to make something extra.  So, I bought them from a wonderful bakery and I am happy, the recipients will be happy and we all will be thrilled that I did not attempt to make something and end up giving everyone tummy distress.  It is always a good day when no one is upset with you over food poisoning, you know?

By the time I ran my errands, I was starved, but I did not buy any groceries that could be eaten on the way home, and did not drive-through anywhere.  I came home and prepared my lunch for tomorrow and then sliced some of the beef and dunked it into the horseradish/mayo.  There was a wee bit of ice cream left in the freezer, so I made sure that it did not go to waste. smiley: tongue

Today was not enough calories, which I know even though I am not counting them.  The ice cream helped, but it is not exactly the kind of nutrition or calories that I would prefer to eat.  I should be fine over the weekend, when I am away from home, because I bought a jar of ground-peanuts-only peanut butter, and some really healthy crackers that are probably icky, but will be fine with the peanut butter.  I also have water to take along, apples and a small carton of yogurt.  If I am careful and proactive about the food we will be served, I should be fine.  If not, then it is no greater a fail than the ones I have been having lately.

I did my stuff-for-work shopping at Walmart and whilst I was looking for some cute trim to tart up my new flip flops, a woman asked me how to make maroon colored paint.  What she wanted to do was not possible, mostly because it involves a great deal of text to be painted on T-shirts for her son's graduation on Saturday.  We discussed lots of options, stamping, using fabric paints in the bottles with the thin/pointy tops, even throwing herself on the mercy of a place that does graphics and printing, and I finally asked if she had access to a computer, an ink jet printer and the Internet.

She has a friend who might be able to help her, so I suggested she talk to her friend and find out if she had the time to help her create a nice design that could be printed on those iron-on transfer sheets that you can use in your computer printer.  I am going to do a few designs and then have her come to where I work tomorrow and I will e-mail them to her friend, who can then print them and someone can iron them onto the shirts.

I checked with work, and my schedule is full of clients, but I can squeeze her in at the end of the day, before knitting club.  Frankly, I wish that I had run into her last week; there would have been plenty of time to do all of this, but I am out of town on Thursday, part of Friday and the entire weekend.

I do not know why, but I am asked for help in stores all the time.  Even in the market where I am pushing a cart and noodling around looking at things.  I must just look like an employee wherever I go.  I do not shop in many different places, so usually know where most things are and I am happy to help.  When I cannot, I do know where to direct someone.

Which reminds me of a funny encounter sometime during the holiday period last year.  I was shopping at a fabric and craft store and a woman asked me to help her find some specialized sewing notions.  Clearly, she did not see the cart, my cart between us or notice that it contained my crap as well as my really big, like humongous, purse.  Nor did she notice that I was not wearing the uniform shirt that employees wear and that I was, instead, wearing my coat and scarf.

When I told that I was sorry, that I was not familiar with the brand of the items, and that I was not an employee there, but that she could find help by going over three aisles and asking the person who runs that department, she was incensed enough to point her finger and tell me that she was a very busy person, but she was going to make sure to stop and tell the manager that he should hire better people than me.

I really wanted to follow her and observe her scolding the manager about me, but I was afraid to upset her more, so I just re-joined my shopping friend and told her about it.  She agreed, that they really should have better employees than me. smiley: laugh

I arrived home too late to do more laundry, so it will have to wait until next Tuesday, which is the only day that I can use the equipment.  Long story, sad story, although I do come out looking quite good, but that would still be another story, yes?

I watched, well, mostly listened (although that was not helpful in that the dialogue was mostly in Portuguese...I think), to a film about Vik Muniz.  Very inspiring and making me want to get back to my own found-objects work.  I demurred with that gallery owner recently, although I know that I can renew that conversation any time I like.  I was even thinking about doing a series of divestment works where I would incorporate some of the stuff that needs to go, but for which I am too attached.  Hmmmm, I wonder how you attach a loom to a canvas?  Or, maybe I could just tart up the loom and let it speak for itself.

Whatever work I decide to do, if I decide anything, it will be what it is supposed to be.  Painting, sculpting and combining are hard work, but there are those crystalline moments when it seems as though I am channeling something.  So lovely to feel that, being caught up in the energy of the work, carried along, manifesting the crap out of every internally held/captured emotion.

I sometimes think that being fucked over by that gallery guy back in February is not, might not be the whole reason why I am not working in the studio.  Maybe I am wary of releasing the bad stuff in my life because I know that even more bad stuff will happen around here to take it's place.  This sounds supremely stupid, but it feels like when I am packed full of sadness, pain and worry, fear and all the rest, that there is no more room for more of the same and that the new stuff will sort of roll off of me because there is not any place to put any more of it.  Like I said, stupid, simply does not work like that.

Today's GP is more optimistic.  It deserves a real and true name, but it is only Smile 1.  Maybe that is because I am hopeful for more.  Maybe.  You know?

And, because Lili was in here today, there is also a sketch of her.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 26

Breakfast:  Eggs
Lunch:  Japanese place, usual
Dinner:  Sushi

Lunch today was the usual healthy stuff there, not as much fruit, but some noodles and rice.  Our waiter mentioned that I never order any rice or noodles and asked why.  I told him that there was too much carbs, they were not so great for me and that when I start eating them that I begin to crave them and that simply avoiding them was better all round. 

When he brought our food, he had a small plate with some cellophane noodles that had been sautéd with green onions, surimi and a bit of egg, and rice, again sautéd, but with fresh edamame, onions and green beans.  Like some robotic people-pleaser, I tried them and eventually ate most of it.  You know, I am accustomed to ordering just enough food to satisfy without stuffing myself, like I almost always did before starting this thing.  I never clean my plate anymore, well, most of the time.  And, it is working.  I am satisfied by making careful food choices whenever possible, eating enough to keep me going, stopping eating before I feel full and drinking lots of water during the day.  I cannot remember when I last felt the urge to eat anything between meals.  I bought some of my favorite chocolate more than a month ago and have not felt more than the merest desire to eat any, and resisting even that. 

So, all in all, I am doing well.  I feel the urge to weigh myself on occasion, but since I did not do that at the beginning, it would not be all that helpful, since I am not keeping track.  I am paying attention to portions, although not considering what calories they might contain.  That part is probably foolish, but it has not been a problem...yet.  If I am forced to keep track of calories, I will do it, but I will not be very happy about it; my reasoning being that I have no intention of counting calories for the rest of my life.  I am trying to think long term.

I wonder how responsible I am being with all of this.  I think about how I might be pandering to some screwed-up notions about what becoming healthier means to me, particularly in relation to all of the recent health issues. 

Anyway, it got me to thinking about responsibility.  I had a client yesterday with some particularly difficult personal and legal issues that are having a serious consequence where new employment is concerned.  It is certainly none of my business, and I am not judging him, but he is staunchly avoiding taking responsibility for some of the things that brought him to this point.  If that is where he is, then that is where he is.  The difficulty is that I can do and help only so much unless the other person does their part of the work.  So, we are kind of stuck, and I offered to have an extra session with him this morning.  Thursday is not one of my regular days there, so I had to rearrange my schedule to accommodate his.

He never showed up.  Yesterday, as he was leaving, he joked that I had better be there when he showed up.  It was kind of funny, because he was comfortable joking with me after only one session.  So, anyway, I waited for him.  He was not late, he just never came, nor did he call.  I waited thirty minutes, packed up my stuff, and left.  Now, I have a policy about not calling people to remind them of their appointments or calling to find out why someone is late.  I know that medical offices do this all the time, but they have to maintain tight schedules and make as certain as possible that their patients actually show up and not waste the time that could be given to another patient.

I do not have that scheduling and attendant financial aspect.  Besides, I think that if you cannot show up, maybe developing some good habits along the way, how are you going to be responsible to show up for work every day.  It is difficult enough to find a job and it is in one's best interest to be responsible and to inform prospective employers that you have some commitment and dedication to being reliable.  He will call and make another appointment and will likely show up, but I will not be offering any additional, off-schedule time to him.  No more coming in on my day off.  And, it is too bad, because I know that I could be of significant assistance to him.  However, I cannot make anyone want or use what I have to offer.

Oh, in honor of my second anniversary doing this work, I am ordering some business cards.  I am trying very hard to not tart them up, though.  I will be working on knitting more wash cloths tomorrow at the gallery.  Maybe when my friend comes in to fuck me over again I can point my needles at him and say, "Hey, friend, you got no power over me, so just go work your mean mojo somewhere else.  My heart is enough to hold you and give back, but taking crap is no longer what I do."  Fine.  I will not say that or anything close to it.  Still have to find a way to help that world go away.  Get it off of my shoulder.

I came home, worked a bit, read a bit and took a nap.  Very nice.  Then, just an hour ago I had the California Roll that I brought home from the restaurant.  Very nice. 

All in all, a great day.  Still coughing like a bitch, although my ear feels better.  It might be time to find a new allergy doctor.  I have not needed one for decades, but this icky illness stuff has to be allergies.  Sort of like being responsible to myself, especially in this journey to better health. 

Guilty Pleasure for today.  Heart enough to hold and give:

 I am a foolish person.  I am not saying that is bad or anything, although it probably is, bad that is.  It is just who I am most of the time lately.   My preference would be lighthearted, joyful, pleasant, sweet and fun-loving.  I can get there, be those things, but often I just miss my marks and am foolish by default.  I guess that it is better than cranky or bitchy.  It is just that people may enjoy the antics of a fool, but they just do not take them seriously.  You know?

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 25

Breakfast:  Eggs
Lunch:  Salad, 3 old chicken wing parts (over-microwaved), a couple of pecan halves, a couple of tiny, tumbled carrots
Dinner:  2 dollar menu chicken sandwiches (jalapenos added at home), small fries

Good grief, a quarter of the way through.  If I were not already feeling and seeing changes, for the better by the way, in my body, I think that I would be discouraged with so little time left.  I know that I am invested in making life-long changes and that I did not gain all of the tonnage in a few months, but I am a bit discouraged.  Not much, just a little.

Still walking without my cane and I actually felt confident tooling around work today.  I must have made a dozen or more trips to various parts of the building.  I still took the elevator between floors, often enviously watching other people take the stairs.  Too much bone-on-bone in my knees and hip to be able to navigate them quickly enough to stay out of the way of people who can use them with ease.

I remember thinking, during one of those waiting for the elevator moments that I will be able to fly up and down in another month or so, then remembering that that is simply not going to happen for me, not with these joints. 

The fiber babes met again at the end of the day.  I have been wanting to take on knitting again, so this is the perfect opportunity.  I am the second last person with experience, but did not feel intimidated by the skill levels of the other women.  I took out my cotton yarn and my number 4 needles and cast on for a wash cloth.  I made it halfway and will finish it at the gallery on Friday and begin a second one.

I decided that it was so cute that it and the second one could be for my grandbabies.  I just bought them Cars strawberry shampoo and we will be making bath paints next week.  With the wash cloths, they will be set to go.  I thought about making some swirled soap in the colors of the yarn, but quickly abandoned the idea.  Just too tired to mess with lye.

I scheduled an extra session with a client for tomorrow morning, and, huge surprise, have been invited to lunch at the Japanese restaurant.  I might not go, just have to see how the energy develops tomorrow.

What else...nothing.  I am tired and going to bed.  Watched the De Niro, Edward Norton film, Stone tonight.  Very film noir, but really, ponderous.  I liked it, sort of, decent acting, mostly, and Norton is as mesmerizing to watch as ever, but it seemed full of lost opportunities.  Or, I am just too tired and did not get any of it.  Probably the latter.  Maybe not. 

I am hungry.  My feet hurt.

I think this is the last stockpiled GP.